Common puffball or Common stinkhorn

The fruiting body is inverted pear-shaped or club-shaped, 2-6 cm tall, 1.5-4 cm wide at the top. The upper (fertile) part is a rounded head; the lower (sterile) part is a narrowed “stalk” 1-3 cm long. Color: young ones are white or cream; with age yellowish grey to brown. A telltale feature — the surface is covered in coarse spiny warts (1-2 mm) that gradually fall off, leaving a net-like trace.

At the egg stage — a white or cream sphere 4-6 cm across with a thick, slimy skin. In the mature mushroom — a bell-shaped cap 3-5 cm tall, covered in dark olive or greenish-brown slimy gleba with a honeycomb structure.

Internal hymenophore (gleba). The young gleba is white, dense and uniform. With age it turns yellow, then green, and becomes a dark olive-grey powdery spore mass. At the top of a mature fruiting body an opening forms, through which the spores puff out when a raindrop hits (hence the Ukrainian name, “rain mushroom”). Spore print dark olive-brown.

The hymenophor is a slimy gleba on the cap surface. The spores are tiny and are carried by flies drawn to the powerful carrion smell — a specialized dispersal mechanism of the stinkhorn family.

There is no separate stem — the fruiting body is all one piece. The lower sterile part is a “stalk-base” 1-3 cm tall, somewhat narrower than the top, white and scaly, passing into whitish rhizomorphs (mycelial cords) in the soil.

Stem 12-22 cm tall, 2-4 cm thick, white or cream, cylindrical, hollow inside. The surface is spongy, delicate and brittle. It grows out of the egg in 2-4 hours — one of the fastest growth rates among fungi.

The flesh of young ones is pure white, uniform, dense, with a delicate pleasant flavor. With age it turns yellow, then green, and becomes a spore mass. The test: cut it open: uniform white = good to eat; any other color = throw it out.

At the egg stage — white with a greenish gelatinous layer under the skin, firm, with a delicate taste. In the mature mushroom — spongy, brittle, white. Does not change color when cut.

Faint, pleasant mushroomy smell with no sharp notes. Taste mild and neutral — it takes on the flavors of the dish.

In a young egg — faint, barely mushroomy, with a hint of radish. In the mature mushroom — extremely strong and unpleasant, reminiscent of carrion or rotting meat. The smell travels tens of meters through the air and attracts flies that spread the spores.